Vulcan's Aquarium

In reply to a recent enquiry, what exactly is 'the Aquarium of Vulcan' from which this blog is named, its useful to refer to the ancient Greek  literary figure of Athenaeus, author of the Deipnsophistae or 'Banquet of the Philosophers'  the allusive source of the little-known myth of Vulcan's love-gift to Venus.

But first, by far the better-known myth associated with Vulcan is that of the goddess Venus  caught in bed with Mars, trapped by her husband Vulcan throwing an 'invisible net' over the pair of lovers. The Roman poet Ovid supplied rich material for many Renaissance-era artists in his Metamorphoses including a description of how Vulcan responded when discovering Venus and Mars in bed together.

'At once, he began to to fashion slender bronze chains, nets and snares which the eye could not see. The thinnest threads spun on the loom, or cobwebs hanging from rafters are no finer than was that workmanship. Moreover, he made them so that they would yield to the lightest touch, and to the smallest movement. These he set skillfully around his bed.

When his wife and her lover lay down together upon that couch they were caught by the chains, ingeniously fastened there by her husband's skill, and they were held fast in the very act of embracing. Immediately, Vulcan  flung open the ivory doors, and admitted the gods. There lay Venus and Mars, close bound together, a shameful sight. The gods were highly amused; ... They laughed aloud, and for long this was the best-known story in heaven'. [1] 

Vulcan enmeshing Venus and Mars in his net was a popular subject for many Renaissance artists including Velasquez, Tintoretto, Piero di Cosimo, Van Dyck and Rubens. Northern Mannerists artists in particular, such as Wtewael, Spranger and Heemskercke were all attracted to the myth.

Tintoretto in his 'Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan' dated 1551-1552 (below) has Vulcan interrupting Venus and Mar's love-making without his net. Examining by invitation her beauty, in close proximity, Vulcan is momentarily distracted from detecting a seemingly timorous Mars hiding under a bed. 

The Dutch Northern Mannerist artist Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638) painted the moment in which Venus and Mars are surprised by Vulcan in three differing versions (below). The main protagonists of the celestial drama with their respective attributes can all be seen in Wtewael's elaborate staging, including Mercury with his caduceus, Saturn with his scythe along with Vulcan preparing to fling his net over the lovers.

Bartholomew Spranger (1546-1611) was a Flemish artist who worked as a Court artist for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The erotic content of  his 'Vulcan and Venus' (below) is overt with its emphasis upon the Beauty and the Beast aspect of the relationship. The art critic Linda Murray notes of the main  thematic and stylist traits of  Mannerist art - 

'Mannerism can be quite easily recognised and defined: in general it is equated with a concentration on the nude, often in bizarre and convoluted poses, and with exaggerated muscular development; with subject matter either deliberately obscure, or treated so that it becomes difficult to understand -the main incident pushed into the background or swamped with irrelevant figures serving as excuses for displays of virtuosity in figure painting; with extremes of perspective, distorted proportions or scale -figures jammed into too small a space so that one has the impression that any movement would burst the confines of the picture space; with vivid colour schemes, employing discordant contrasts, effects of 'shot' colour, not for descriptive or naturalistic purposes, but as a powerful adjunct to the emotional impact of the picture'. [2]  

Its a seemingly unequal pairing of a submissive Vulcan and dominant Venus in Spranger's interpretation of the two gods relationship.  

With its unusual perspective, depiction of ancient world mythology and eroticism, Maarten van Heemskerck's (1498-1574)  'Venus, Mars and Vulcan'  (below) is closely associated with Northern Mannerist art in subject-matter along with exploring expressions of sexuality. Confident in her seductive qualities, its a not-so demure-looking Venus who gazes into the viewer's eyes in Heemskerck's painting. 

The Graeco-Roman myth of  Mars trapped by Vulcan's net  is included in the hermetic phantasmagoria of the English physician-philosopher Thomas Browne's 'network' discourse, The Garden of Cyrus (1658) its full running title being The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Naturally, Artificially, Mystically considered.

'As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that inextinguishable laugh in heaven; since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it. Although why Vulcan bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythology'.

And in fact the highly symbolic figure of Vulcan opens Browne's hermetic discourse, ('That Vulcan gave arrows to Apollo  and Diana') and ushers its apotheosis in which 'Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his armour'. 

On a mundane level the appeal of the myth of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan may be viewed as social commentary upon the rise of adultery in urban Europe. During the Renaissance, with the increase and mix of population in European cities, opportunities for extra-marital affairs grew. The myth served well as a moral warning to its viewers.  Renaissance painters also seized upon the myth of Venus and Mars and its symbolism in order to comment upon war-torn Europe of the late 16th and early 17th centuries for from the union of Venus, the goddess of Peace and Mars, the god of war, a child named Harmony was born. From an esoteric perspective the union of Venus and Mars is a lesser example of the 'coniunctio' or union of opposites in alchemy which was more often symbolized by the luminaries Sol et Luna.

Although Vulcan was famed for his inventiveness, making armour for the hero Achilles and a chair for his mother-in-law from which she could not escape when sitting on, no painting has survived of  his constructing an aquarium for Venus. In any event, Casaubon's edition of Athenaeus's 'Banquet of the Philosophers' was not published until 1612 and therefore no painting of this subject before this date is possible.  There is however at least one Renaissance painting in which Venus is depicted visiting her husband Vulcan's forge, perhaps for the purpose of requesting a love-gift. 

In the Dutch painter Jan van Kessel's 'Venus at the forge of Vulcan'  of 1662 (below) the stark contrast between the naked vulnerability of Venus and the metallic accoutrements of protective armour scattered in its foreground is notable. 

Thomas Browne for one knew that a close relationship existed between the goddess Venus, water and fish. In his commonplace notebooks the following verse couplet can be found-

'Who will not commend the wit of Astrology ? 

Venus born of the sea hath her exaltation in Pisces'. 

Its possible that Thomas Browne knew of the myth of Vulcan's Aquarium for Isaac Casaubon's 1612 edition of Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae, or 'The Banquet of the Philosophers'  is listed as once in his library. Browne also wrote a short, humorous piece entitled 'From a reading of Athenaeus'. [3]

Athenaeus lived in Naucratis circa the late 2nd to early 3rd century CE In his day Naucratis was an important Egyptian  harbor and a dynamic melting-pot of Greek and Egyptian art and culture. Its also the setting of 'The Banquet of the Philosophers' in which characters such as physicians, philosophers, grammarians, parasites and musicians discuss topics as diverse as Baths, Wine, invented words, feasts and music, useless philosophers, precious metals, flatterers, gluttony and drunkenness, hedonism and obesity, women and love, mistresses and courtesans, the cooking of fish and cuisine in general, ships, entertainment, luxury and  perfumes.

In total the 15 books of the 'Banquet  of the  philosophers',  mention almost  800 authors. Over 2500 separate works are cited in it, making it a valuable source of numerous works of Greek literature which otherwise would have been lost, which includes three surviving lines on Vulcan's aquarium. 

James Russell Lowell famously characterized the Deipnosophistae as -'the somewhat greasy heap of a literary rag-and-bone-picker like Athenaeus is turned to gold by time'. In the seventeenth century there was a revived interest in the Banquet of the Philosophers following its publication by the scholar Isaac Casaubon  (1559-1614) in 1612. The  commentary to the text was Isaac Causabon’s magnum opus. Incidentally it was the scholarship of Isaac Causabon which proved from his textual analysis of  the Corpus Hermeticum that it could not have been written by the mythic ancient Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus who anticipated the coming of Christ, as commonly believed, but in fact was a syncretic work of  Gnostic and Greek philosophy dated centuries after Christ's era, circa 200 and 300 CE.

By all accounts Athenaeus was a favourite author of Thomas Browne for he stated in his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica-

'Athenæus, a delectable Author, very various, and justly stiled by Casaubon, Græcorum Plinius (Greek Pliny) . There is extant of his, a famous Piece, under the name of Deipnosophista, or Coena Sapientum, containing the Discourse of many learned men, at a Feast provided by Laurentius. It is a laborious Collection out of many Authors, and some whereof are mentioned nowhere else. It containeth strange and singular relations, not without some spice or sprinkling of all Learning. The Author was probably a better Grammarian then Philosopher, dealing but hardly with Aristotle and Plato, and betrayeth himself much in his Chapter De Curiositate Aristotelis. In brief, he is an Author of excellent use, and may with discretion be read unto great advantage: [4]

From his reading of Athenaeus Browne knew of ancient world sexual activities -   

'The impudent wantonness of the ancients placed sponges in the natural parts of women that by expanding they might produce a lewd and as it were haunching movement in the female, whence a keener lust is provoked in the male. In the elaborations of coition almost nothing has been untried, so that the indecent egg of Marcellus Empiricus is no marvel. Away with these foolish toys of lust'. 

Its in book 2 of  'Banquet of the Philosophers'  that Athenaeus records how the blacksmith of the gods Vulcan set about creating sheets of glass which he bonded together with an early version of tungsten steel. Tungsten is one of the oldest elements used for alloying steel. It forms a very hard carbide and iron tungstite. High tungsten content in the alloy however tends to cause brittleness and makes it subject to fracturing rather than bending. Somehow Vulcan over came this weakness, its speculated through adding 'the salty sweat' of his workshop labourers to the molten crucible. 

The little-known myth is recounted in the Deipnosophistae after heated discussion upon the best sauces to prepare for fish.  The  courtesan and lute-player musician Callipygae recites three verses from a long-lost comedy, now known only by the title of The Chessmen of Odysseus. Its believed that the following lines specifically allude to Vulcan's aquarium -

 As the Pleiades ascended, Vulcan's workshop laboured,

the sound of hammer on anvil could be heard 

echoing through mountains

 until rosy dawn glowed furnace-like in the east. 

 Salty sweat streamed in torrents into hissing troughs, 

smelting and refining the dross. 

Crafted and ready 

to bind with ox-like ribs the thick and cloudy glass,

Vulcan's love-gift  for Venus. 

[6]  (Book 2 Lines 27-29 ) 

Aquariums are mysterious habitats which often evoke great underwater beauty. They function well as calming distractions and their psychological benefits include reducing stress. Looking into an aquarium, observing fish swimming care-free, helps people momentarily forget their worries. 

The symbol of the aquarium invites speculation and analysis. For the seminal twentieth century psychologist C.G. Jung -

'The protean mythologem and the shimmering symbol express the processes of the psyche far more trenchantly than, in the end, far more clearly than the clearest concept.' [7] 

Perhaps Venus made her request to test the fullness of Vulcan's forgiveness, or else to alleviate her boredom with Vulcan spending long hours away from her at the forge, or simply for her amusement and pleasure, its not really known. Nor is it known how many or what kind of fish she choose to place in her aquarium. But whether Vulcan manufactured his love-gift for Venus specifically for any of these reasons remains unclear. What is clear is that the fish in the Aquarium of Vulcan are far more playful than previously imagined. 

Notes

[1] Ovid Metamorphosis  Book 4 lines 180-190

[2] The High Renaissance and Mannerism Linda Murray Thames and Hudson 1977

[3]  1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 7 no. 67

[4]  Pseudodoxia Epidemica . Bk.1 chapter 8

[5] From a reading of Athenaeus 

[6] Deipnosophistae Book 2 lines 27-29

[7] Collected Works of C.G.Jung vol. 13  Alchemical Studies (1967) para. 199

 

The comic genius of Jan van Haasternen

Celebrating the comic genius of  Jan van Haasternen on the occasion of his birthday, with a brief look at his artwork, alongside Dutch 'Golden Age' paintings.

 

Jan van Haasteren (b. February 24th 1936 - ) was born  in Schiedam in the region of South Holland in the Netherlands.  His early childhood years were lived through the second World War. He later attended technical school, where he learned to become a home decoration painter, and then studied Publicity and Advertising at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam. After his military service he began his career with a small Rotterdam-based advertising agency. He joined the Marten Toonder studios in 1962 and began freelancing in 1967. Throughout the 1960's and 70's Jan worked with a wide variety of  magazine advertising  agencies and comic strip publishers. 

Jan van Haasternen joined Jumbo puzzles in 1980 and has now supplied the jigsaw manufacturing company with over two hundred of his inventive, action packed tableaux in which almost anything and everything is happening at the same time. An early example of Jan's comic strip art style can be seen in his popular 'Baron von Tast'  series. (Below)

In 'The Bachelor' (below) an unmarried man engaged in domestic chores, tidies away his pet octopus. A mysterious hand grasps to stop the pendulum of a Grand-father clock which has the ages of 30, 40, 50 and 60 years inscribed upon its face.

Two regular characters in Jan's comic puzzles are featured in his earliest artwork for Jumbo. In 'The Classroom' (below) a teacher screams in fright at a mouse whilst a cat sleeps undisturbed on top of a locker. The school children are absorbed in their own fun and games and aren't concerned at all with their teacher's alarm !

 

'Get that cat !' an early artwork supplied by Jan for Jumbo puzzles (below) displays a variety of architectural styles which are the background to a pack of dogs gathered to catch a cat. They've surrounded a tree in which the cat sits, calm and safe above them all. A spotty Dalmatian dog and a tabby cat are the oldest characters regularly featured in Jan's puzzle art. 

With his industrious inventiveness,  ability to supply a near endless variations upon a theme, accompanied by a humorous multiplicity of action, its not too bold to state that Jan's skillful draughtsmanship, along with his astute observation of people, shares characteristics with artists of the 'Golden Age' of Dutch Art. Indeed, Jan's own hometown, Schiedam, was also the birthplace of the gifted 'Golden Age' artist Adam Pynacker. Like many Dutch artists of the seventeenth century, Adam Pynacker (1622-79) had a relatively short life. He's noted for painting in the fashionable and popular Italian style which often featured ancient ruins in a rural setting lit by a glowing, south of the Alps sunlight, as in his Landscape with a Goatherd (Below). 

Adam Pynacker -Landscape with a goatherd

There's one Dutch painter in particular whose art shares fruitful comparison to Jan van Haasternen's, its by another Jan, the most Dutch of all Dutch names, the artist Jan Steen (1626-79). Jan Steen's paintings capture the lives of the ordinary Dutch citizens enjoying life, often drinking, music-making and playing pranks upon each other. The chaos and disorder often to be found in Jan Steen's paintings is not so removed from Jan van Haasternen's comic art, but without Steen's moralising. In  Jan Steen's 'A School class' the moral lesson that its bad teachers who make bad schoolchildren is underscored with anarchy and chaos reigning supreme in the classroom.

Jan Steen - A School Class (circa 1670)

The prosperous times of the Dutch Republic resulted in an estimated million paintings being bought and owned by ordinary citizens in a short, historical era. The art genres of landscape, portraiture, still life, maritime scenes and depictions from mythology and the Bible were all popular, as was a genre known as 'merry group' art, such as in Jan Steen's, 'As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young' dated circa 1668-1670 (above).

Sometimes allusion to famous Dutch or Flemish art is easily detected. Michel Ryba's 'The Seasons' (detail below) explicitly alludes to Pieter Breugel's famous painting known as ' The Hunters in the Snow' (1565).

The Dutch nation have long been renowned for their peaceful and tolerant attitude whilst living in close proximity to each other. In Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 'Dutch Proverbs' (below) over 126 proverbs are referenced, including, 'Horse droppings are not figs' meaning appearances are deceiving, 'There's more in it than an empty herring' meaning, there's more than meets the eye, 'to hang one's cloak according to the wind' meaning to adapt one's viewpoint to the current opinion, and 'he who has spilt his porridge cannot scrape it all up again'. (Don't cry over spilt milk.) The sheer profusion of people in Bruegel's 'Dutch proverbs' is suggestive of the thriving, dense population of the Netherlands during the Renaissance and equally true of modern-day Netherlands.

Jan's view of art and of the public viewing of art in galleries is encapsulated in a puzzle below.

Jan van Haasternen's comic art for Jumbo puzzles often involves a crowd of participants, male and female, young and old, cheerful and annoyed, engaged in a multiplicity of antics and pranks, not least in his 'Acrobat Circus' (Below). Several regulars characters in Haasternen's puzzles including a bishop (swinging on a rope) a convict, a pink octopus and Jan's signature motif, a shark's fin cutting through the action, can be spotted. By the way double-clicking on these images enlarges them for greater detail, especially if using a lap-top.

'Acrobat Circus'

'St. George and the Dragon'

'The Holiday Fair'

'Sportsday' 

The outdoor scene 'Winter Games' (below) is one of my personal favourites. Its exemplary of Jan's superb draughtsmanship skills, bringing alive a wide expanse with great depth of field perspective. As ever Jan's signature motif, a shark's fin can be spotted by the sharp-eyed, silently cutting its way through the hilarious action.

In 2013 Jan van Haasternen became a Knight  of the Order of Orange-Nassau for his contributions to Dutch comics culture and for his role as an inspirer of comic artists and illustrators. And in 2021 he and other members of Studio Van Haasteren (notably Dick Heins and Rob Derks) were awarded the P. Hans Frankfurther Prize for special merits. 

But perhaps the greatest award and achievement of the comic genius of Jan van Haasternen is the simple fact that Jan's puzzles gave cheer to countless puzzlers, young and old, during the long days and nights of the global pandemic (2020-22). At a time when many were time rich as never before, socially isolated and in need of mental stimulation, jigsaws, not least by Jan van Haasternen occupied the minds of many world-wide, effectively offering escape from gloomy days, giving a challenge and a chuckle during their construction, along with a real sense of accomplishment upon completion. 

I'm confident that admirers of JvH jigsaws will today raise a glass on the occasion of the artist's 87th birthday, and toast with me to the good health of the comic genius, Jan van Haasternen. 

See also

*    The joy and alchemical play of jigsaws

Browne on Art and Paintings

Scattered throughout Sir Thomas Browne's collected writings there can be found various remarks and observations relating to aesthetics and the visual arts. Furthermore, a familiarity with the social circles frequented by Browne provides clues to identifying paintings which he personally may have seen.

Browne's life-time encompassed the 'Golden Age' of Dutch Art. It was an era in which painters of the genius of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Johannes Vermeer (1635-1675) flourished. Browne's life-time also witnessed a decline in Anglo-Dutch relations as the newly-established and independent Republic developed its own trading and commerce. No less than three naval wars between the Dutch and English occurred in his life-time, the last resulting in a tragedy for his family.

With its extensive coast-line the county of Norfolk, along with the city of Norwich have a close geographical and cultural proximity to the Netherlands. It should not therefore be too surprising that paintings by Dutch master artists were acquired by Norfolk and Norwich gentry throughout the seventeenth century.  A clue to Browne himself owning a Dutch painting occurs in a footnote in his little-explored commonplace notebooks

'Being in the country a few miles from Norwich, I observed a handsome bower of honeysuckle over the door of a cottage of a right good man; which bower I fancied to speak as follows' ........

There follows a Latin poem in which Browne in a rare example of his poetic skills gives voice to honeysuckle. The verse concludes with a footnote -

'Alluding to the fable in Ovid of Baucis and Philemon entertaining Jupiter and Mercury in their cottage; whereof hangs in my parlour from a draught of Rubens'. [1]

Peter Paul Rubens painting of the gods Jupiter and Mercurius visiting the house of Philemon and Baucis (c.1630) depicts the fable as told by the Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses of Baucis and Philemon who unwittingly entertain the gods Jupiter and Mercury in their cottage. The charitable act of hospitality, encouraged by all world religions for humanity towards strangers is endorsed in Christianity thus- ' Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. [2]

Its interesting to think that this painting may have been a constant reminder to Browne to live as far as possible in an hospitable way, no easy aspiration in an era which encompassing the English Civil war (1642-51) was often inhospitable in extreme.

Its quite possible that Browne’s painting may have originated from the studio of Rubens rather than by the hand of Rubens himself. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) made much use of sub-contracted artists as well as those of his own large workshop. Painters of the calibre of Van Dyke often studied in master-artist's work-shops.

It has been calculated that an estimated 1.3 million Dutch pictures were painted from 1640 -1660 alone, many of which originated from master-artist's work-shops. This volume of production meant that prices were fairly low, except for the best known artists.

Van Dyke became the chief assistant to Rubens, the dominant master of Antwerp, and the whole of Northern Europe. Ruben's influence on the young Van Dyke was immense; indeed, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as "the best of my pupils". When Van Dyke arrived in England to establish a successful career, he found, as the German composer Handel almost a century later, that while the English were wealthy and appreciative patrons of the arts, nonetheless they lacked many of the skills associated with nurturing and developing the arts.

In Browne's psychological self-portrait Religio Medici written after completing his medical studies in the Dutch University city of Leiden in 1629,  the recently qualified doctor wittily confesses  -

'I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an Horse'. [3]

Browne’s candid admission to delighting in contemplation of a painting exemplifies his refined appreciation of beauty, a  psychological feature of his which is often overlooked by critics and biographers. However, the rigours of establishing a medical practise in order to provide for his ever-growing family, along with his pursuing interests such as conducting ‘elaboratory’ experiments, bird-keeping, antiquarian studies, letter-writing and reading, along with living conditions in 17th century England in general, could hardly have permitted the learned doctor with the leisure-time to contemplate a painting a whole day. Such an expressed sentiment is more wishful thinking than any opportunity for doing so, yet also suggest Browne possessed a strong inclination to contemplate artistic beauty.

It's also in Religio Medici that one of the most popular of all Browne’s many quotes, now frequently cited as an internet meme can be found -

Nature hath made one world, and Art another. In brief, all things are artificial, for nature is the Art of God. [4]

Although the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of  Sir Thomas Browne and his son Edward’s libraries announces that, ‘Books of Painting and Sculpture’ are to be auctioned, no such books are listed in the Auction Catalogue. The 1711 Auction Sales Catalogue has been described as indispensable for understanding and appreciating Browne’s vast and omnivorous reading, book-collecting and erudition. However, the fifty-odd pages of the facsimile document, along with an introduction and indexing by Princeton professor of English literature Jeremiah Finch (1910-2005) was not published until as late as 1986.

Without a reliable record of art-books once owned by Browne one is left with only fleeting allusions to artists and art-books in his writings. In  Pseudodoxia Epidemica  for example, he tantalizingly alludes to owning a famous edition of  Michelangelo stating -

But this absurdity that eminent Artist Michael Angelo hath avoided, in the Pictures of the Cumean and Persian Sibyls, as they stand described from the printed sculptures of Adam Mantuanus. [5]

The bulk of Browne's art-criticism can be found  in his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646). Its fifth book, entitled,‘Of many things questionable as they are commonly described in Pictures’ includes criticism upon the veracity of depictions of mermaids, gryphons, unicorns and basilisks, as well as speculations upon colour and the causes of blackness in nature.

Defining painters as, 'the visible representers of things, and such as by the learned sense of the eye, endeavour to inform the understanding’. [6] Browne laments in his quest to ascertain truth, ‘nor is the hand of the Painter more restrainable than the pen of the Poet'. [7]

The  essence of Browne's art aesthetics occurs in his stating-

Art being but the imitator or secondary representor, it must not vary from the verity of the example; or describe things otherwise than they truly are or have been. For hereby introducing false Idea's of things it perverts and deforms the face and symmetry of truth. [8]

No less than three chapters of the encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica are devoted to the cause of Blackness. Firstly, in consideration of skin colour, the cause of so much irrational hatred, prejudice and suffering throughout centuries, then in relation to colour. Browne arrives at the conclusion that black is equal in beauty to any other colour.

Browne's deep interest in colour is evident in his regretting, ‘we remain imperfect in the general Theory of colours', whilst also speculating - 

Thus although a man understood the general nature of colours, yet were it no easy Problem to resolve, Why Grass is green? Why Garlick, Molyes, and Porrets have white roots, deep green leaves, and black seeds? Why several docks and sorts of Rhubarb with yellow roots, send forth purple flowers? Why also from Lactary or milky plants which have a white and lacteous juyce dispersed through every part, there arise flowers blew and yellow ? ...Why shall the marvel of Peru produce its flowers of different colours, and that not once, or constantly, but every day, and variously? Why Tulips of one colour produce some of another, and running through almost all, should still escape a blew? And lastly, Why some men, yea and they a mighty and considerable part of mankind, should first acquire and still retain the gloss and tincture of blackness ? [9]

Browne's sensitivity toward colour can be seen in the following extracts. Firstly, in notes taken from his 'elaboratory' experiments -

'And this is also apparent in Chymical preparations. So Cinnabar becomes red by the acid exhalation of sulphur, which otherwise presents a pure and niveous white. So spirits of Salt upon a blue paper make an orient red. So Tartar or vitriol upon an infusion of violets affords a delightful crimson. Thus it is wonderful what variety of colours the spirits of Saltpeter, and especially, if they be kept in a glass while they pierce the sides thereof; I say, what Orient greens they will project: from the like spirits in the earth the plants thereof perhaps acquire their verdure. And from such salary irradiations may those wondrous varieties arise, which are observable in Animals, as Mallards heads, and Peacocks feathers, receiving intention or alteration according as they are presented unto the light. [10]

Secondly, in a detailed description of a bird written for the ornithologist Christopher Merritt.

The head neck throat of a violet colour, the back upper parts of the wing of a russet yellow, the fore part of the wing azure succeeded downward by a greenish blue, the lower parts of the wing outwardly of a brown, inwardly of a merry blue, the belly a light faint blue, the back toward the tail of a purple blue, the tail eleven feathers of a greenish colour, the extremities of the outward feathers thereof white, with a eye of green. Garrulus Argentoratensis [11]

Finally, in a humorous description involving the colour green. Once more from his little-explored Commonplace notebooks-

The picture of Signor Verdero in a proper habit. A suit of a mandrake or nightshade Green. A cloak of a Thistle colour faced with Holly green. A Burdock green hat with an hat-band of poppy leaf vert, set with emeralds and Beryls and a plume of parrot green feathers. Stockings of an Ivy green with sage coloured garters. A Rue coloured sash or girdle with Brake green fringe. Pantoffles of cabbage colour laced with sea Holly or eryngo green. Ribbons all about of fig laurel and Box green. [12]

Visual imagery is integral to Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) in which a rapid procession of objects, patterns and botanical observations exemplary of the quincunx pattern are paraded before the reader. Browne's extraordinary free-ranging imagination cites evidence of the number five and quincunx pattern in art, nature and mystically in  diverse fields such as -

Biblical scholarship, Egyptology, comparative religion in particular the Bembine Tablet of Isis, mythology, ancient world gardening and plantations, geometry, including the Archimedean solids, sculpture, coins, architecture, paving-stones, battle-formations, optics including the camera obscura, zoology, ornithology, the kabbalah, astrology, astronomy and not least, botany,  including many 'occular' descriptions of cinque-foiled flowers and speculations which anticipate modern-day studies in genetics, germination, generation and heredity.

Quite appropriately, and in stark polarity to the serious and gloomy melancholy of Urn-Burial, The Garden of Cyrus is the playful and cheerful half of the literary diptych and as such mentions past-time games including Backgammon, Chess, Skittles, Knuckle Stone and Archery while remote out-of-orbit topics to orthodox learning touched upon in the discourse include - the healing power of music, 'celestial physiognomy', and 'the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starry Book of Heaven'.

Artists have responded well to Browne's visual imagery. The British artist Paul Nash (1889-1946) contributed no less than 32 illustrations for a new edition of Browne's discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus in 1932.

Among Browne's many friends were the Bacon family who resided on the Norfolk/Suffolk border at Gillingham. Browne, by all accounts, socialized with the Bacon's to such an extent that in his dedicatory epistle to The Garden of Cyrus to Nicholas Bacon he was able to declare

'You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights, beyond the reach of exception'.

A warning-note of the wide-ranging subject-matter to be encountered in the discourse is also sounded in the epistle -

'That in this Garden Discourse, we range into extraneous things, and many parts of Art and Nature, we follow herein the example of old and new Plantations, wherein noble spirits contented not themselves with Trees, but by the attendance of Aviaries, Fish Ponds, and all variety of Animals, they made their gardens the Epitome of the earth, and some resemblance of the secular shows of old'.

Royalist supporters kept a low profile during the days of Cromwell's Protectorate of England, occupying their time in harmless pursuits such as antiquities or gardening, while in the wider world England found itself in conflict with the newly-emerging Dutch Republic's economic power and global trade.

The conflict of the Anglo-Dutch wars and British resentment towards the new European power, in words strikingly prescient for present-day political events, such as British prejudice and hostility towards the European Project, and its near-obsession with ‘sovereignty’, are perceptively articulated by the art-historian Simon Schama, who noted of the Dutch Statesman Johan De Witt (1625 -1672) a chief negotiator for the peace treaty of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67).

‘British enmity, on the other hand, he knew to be chronic and rooted in the very nature of the Republic’s existence, or at least  its prosperity. The problem, he supposed in common with many of his compatriots, was that, in matters of trade, the British were poor losers. Unable to match the Dutch in resourcefulness, industry, or technical ingenuity, they were prepared to bludgeon their way to wealth by the assertion of deliberately bellicose principles and by interfering with the freedom of trade. Peevish envy had turned them into a gang of unscrupulous ruffians who would stop at nothing to burglarize the Dutch warehouse, pretending all the time that some cherished issue of sovereignty had been infringed. [13]

Sir Thomas Browne had particular reason to regret the war between the Dutch Republic and England. It was sometime during 1667 that the Browne family received news from the Admiralty that midshipman Thomas Browne (b.1646) who participated in the Naval sea-battle of Lowestoft in 1665  had been reported as lost and his whereabouts unknown, in all probability losing his life at sea following a naval battle.

Its quite possible that Browne once viewed The Supper at Emmaus by the artist Cornelis Engelsz (1575–1650). A combination of still-life and Biblical scene, it was painted when the artist was aged 37 and at full maturity and was probably acquired by Sir Nathaniel Bacon, the grandfather of Nicholas Bacon, during his European tour in 1613.

The Supper at Emmaus (c.1612) has three figures in its foreground who indulge in earthly pleasures, symbolised by the details of the fish, game, meat, vegetables, bread, wine flagon and dairy produce, all of which are painted with meticulous detail. In the background in an adjacent room the figure of Christ is seen breaking bread with two disciples. The viewer is simultaneously reminded of earthly pleasures and The Last Supper.

Another painting which Browne may have had the opportunity to view occurs through his association with Robert Paston (1631-1683) a scientist, politician and a member of Norfolk's gentry. In correspondence to the Norwich physician-philosopher, Robert Paston informed Browne of his alchemical experiments, doubtless to an eager ear-

I have at Oxnead seen this salt change black as ink, I must, at the lowest, have an excellent aurum potable, and if the signs we are to judge in Sendivogius’ description be true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man has that which will dissolve gold as warm water doth ice, you have that which gold was first made in the earth. [14]

Its entirely possible that upon hearing this news Sir Thomas Browne could have made the short journey ten miles north of Norwich to Oxnead. He had done so before in 1668 when informed by Robert Paston of the unearthing of urns at nearby Buxton, part of the Paston's Estate.

The Paston Treasure (c.1675) was commissioned by the Paston family to record their collection of treasures. It was painted by an unknown Dutch artist who travelled to Norfolk for the commission.

The central message of  what is a sophisticated work of art, complete with its rich vanitas symbolism, depiction of collectable art-objects, musical instruments and exotic fruit from around the world, seems to be that the human figures in the painting, both girl and boy, are caught in the very moment of disruption from their respective activities, thus highlighting the uncertainty of this world. A parrot has alighted upon the page of the music-book which the young girl holds, thus preventing her from reading music and singing. Similarly, a pet monkey has sprung onto the shoulder of a startled negro servant, hindering him from his duty of pouring a flagon which he holds in one hand. It's more usual to see such imagery in the humour and morality of 'topsy-turvy' homes depicted by Jan Steen (1626-79).

The importance of The Paston Treasure lies in the international scope and interest of the objects which it portrays, reflecting both exotic nature and the skills of man, as well as the continents of  Africa, the New World of America and China. It has been described as a microcosm of the known world in the 17th century.

The Paston Treasure is the subject of a forthcoming book by senior research scientist, conservator and art-historian, Spike Bucklow. In his ground-breaking book The Alchemy of Paint: Art, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages (2010) Bucklow highlights how, during the Middle Ages there existed a deep and intimate relationship between rare substances, pigments for painting, colour and the artist, which has now long been lost.

Paradoxically, as much a chemist as alchemist, Browne also took a deep interest in the properties of substances from nature. In Pseudodoxia he writes of a spermaceti whale stranded upon Norfolk's shallow beaches, noting of the extracted ambergris,  'it mixeth well with painting Colours, though hardly drieth at all. [15] A similar interest in materials useful for the painter can be seen in Browne's correspondence to his eldest son Edward, in which he advises, 'Enquire after smalt, a stone whereof they make blueing for painting and starch.' [16] A further interest in art materials occcurs in his requesting to Edward, 'I wish you would bring over some of the red marking stone for drawing, if any very good'. [17]

Smalt was an important pigment in European oil painting, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was popular because of its low cost and its manufacture became a specialty of the Dutch and Flemish during the 17th century. Smalt's origins lie in the blue pigment used by the ancient Egyptians, known as ‘Egyptian blue’ and  Cobalt blue used in colouring glass.

But perhaps the most solid contribution made by Browne to the visual arts occurs in his introducing new words into English language. The word 'caricature' being perhaps the most impressive of the art-related words which Browne is credited with first usage according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Other art-related neologisms introduced into English language by Browne include the words 'circumference' - 'colouring' - 'cylindrical' - 'illustrative'- 'irradiancy' - 'pictorial' - 'rectangularly' - 'reticulate' and 'rhombodial'.

All of which suggests Browne's interest and contribution to the visual arts may be far greater than previously imagined.

Notes

[1] Keynes : Collected works of Browne  Faber and Faber1964
[2] Hebrews 2:13
[3] R.M. Part 2:12
[4] R.M.  Part 1:16
[5] Pseudodoxia Epidemica  Book 1 chapter 9
[5] P.E. Book 5 chapter 11
[6] P.E. Book 1 chapter 9
[7] P.E. Book 5 chapter 19
[8] Ibid.
[9] P.E. Book 6 chapter 9
[10] P.E. Book 6 chapter 13
[11] The miscellaneous writings of Sir Thomas Browne.Faber and Faber 1936
[12] Commonplace notebooks Faber and Faber 1964
[13] The Embarrassment of Riches Simon Schama Fontana 1989
[14] Correspondence dated September 10th 1674 in Vol. 3 of the Collected works of Sir Thomas Browne ed. Simon Wilkins Pickering and Co. 1834
[15] P.E. book 3 chapter 26
[16] Correspondence dated April 28th 1669
[17]  Correspondence dated Sept 22th 1668

Books consulted

Notes on the Natural history of Norfolk. Jarrold and sons 1902
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne ed. Simon Wilkins 1842
The Art of the Dutch Republic 1585-1718  Mariet Westermann 1996
The Embarrassment of Riches Simon Schama Fontana 1989

Useful Wikilinks

The Dutch Republic

The Paston Treasure

The Paston Treasure::Microcosm of the known world

One for Peter R.

Vulcan in Art and Alchemy

Today (August 23rd) is the date of the festival of Vulcanalia, held in honor of the Roman god of fire and furnace in the ancient Roman world. Centuries later, during the Renaissance, Vulcan became both a popular subject for painters and synonymous with the art of alchemy, but before discussing the Roman god's symbolism in art and alchemy, its useful to remind ourselves of the original myth of Vulcan in the pantheon of Roman gods.

Vulcan was the son of Jupiter and Juno. As the son of the king and queen of the gods, he should have been handsome, but was ugly as a baby. His mother, Juno was horrified by him. She hurled the tiny baby off the top of Mount Olympus. Vulcan fell down from the sky for a whole day and night, eventually landing in the sea. One of his legs broke when he hit the water and never developed properly. He sank to the depths of the ocean, where the sea-nymph Thetis found him and took him to her underwater grotto, raising him as her own son.

Vulcan had a happy childhood playing with dolphins. When his adopted mother Thetis attended a dinner party held on Mount Olympus wearing a beautiful necklace of silver and sapphires which Vulcan had made for her, Juno asked where she could get such a necklace. Thetis became flustered, which caused Juno to become suspicious; and, at last, she discovered the truth, the baby she had rejected had now grown into a talented blacksmith.

Juno was furious and demanded that Vulcan return home, a demand that he refused. However, he sent her a beautifully constructed chair made of silver and gold. Juno was delighted with this gift but as soon as she sat in it her weight triggered hidden metal bands which sprung forth to hold her fast. The more she struggled the more firmly the mechanical throne gripped her. Juno sat fuming, trapped in Vulcan's chair for three days, unable to sleep or eat. Jupiter finally promised  Vulcan that if he released Juno he would give him a wife, Venus the goddess of love and beauty. Vulcan agreed, married Venus and later built a smithy under Mount Etna on the island of Sicily. It was said that whenever Venus was unfaithful, Vulcan grew angry and beat the red-hot metal with such a force that sparks and smoke rose up from the top of the mountain, creating a volcanic eruption. [1]

During the Renaissance, the subject of Vulcan working at his forge, delivering Achilles armour to Thetis or ensnaring the lovers Venus and Mars, were all popular subjects for artists including Velasquez, Tintoretto, Piero  di Cosimo and Rubens, among others, indeed, the Northern Mannerist artist Joachim Wtewael (1566 –1638) painted the dramatic moment of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan in no less than three differing versions.(below)

Artists interest in the myth of the lovers Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan can be interpreted on at least two levels. Firstly, as a commentary upon taboo topics such as sexuality, temptation and adultery in the growing urban population of Europe and secondly, as symbolic of the 'fixing' and union of opposites in the 'Great  Work' of alchemy.

It was also during the Renaissance that the physician Paracelsus (1491-1540) introduced the mythological figure of Vulcan as the patron deity of alchemy. To the alchemist/physician Vulcan was synonymous with both the manipulation of fire, heating and distilling of nature's properties for medicine, and the transforming power and creative potential locked within the greater, invisible Man slumbering within; Paracelsus declared-

'Alchemy is an art and Vulcan (the governor of fire) is the artist in it. He who is Vulcan has the power of the art ... All things have been created in an unfinished state, nothing is finished, but Vulcan must bring all things to their completion. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and develops it into its final substance ... God created iron but not that which is to be made of it. He enjoined fire, and Vulcan, who is the lord of fire, to do the rest ... From this it follows that iron must be cleansed of its dross before it can be forged. This process is alchemy; its founder is the smith Vulcan. What is accomplished by fire is alchemy - whether in the furnace or in the kitchen stove. And he who governs fire is Vulcan, even if he be a cook or a man who tends the stove'.

Elsewhere Paracelsus writes,

'Alchemy is a necessary, indispensable art ... It is an art, and Vulcan is its artist. He who is a Vulcan has mastered this art; he who is not a Vulcan can make no headway in it'. [2]

The British natural philosopher Francis Bacon however, was skeptical of the claims made by Paracelsian alchemists, indignantly exclaiming in his The Advancement of Learning (1605) -

'Abandoning Minerva and wisdom they play court to the sooty smith Vulcan and his pots and pans'.

Nevertheless, Paracelsian alchemists including the foremost promoter of Paracelsian alchemy Gerard Dorn, the early Belgian scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont, and Arthur Dee, the eldest son of the magus John Dee, all acknowledged the Roman god of forge and furnace as symbolic of their art. Arthur Dee in his Arca Arcarnum mysteriously stated -

'Though I am constrained to die and be buried nevertheless Vulcan carefully gives me birth'.

The Paracelsian ‘deity’ associated with alchemy features no less than three times in Sir Thomas Browne’s hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Firstly, in the very opening sentence of the discourse -

'That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana according to gentile theology in the work of the fourth day may pass for no blind apprehension of the creation of the Sun and Moon'.

Secondly, within the context of Classical  myth in which Vulcan constructs and casts an invisible network ensnaring the lovers Venus and Mars caught in bed inflagrante delicato  -

'As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that inextinguishable laugh in heaven; since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it. Although why Vulcan bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythology'.

Lastly,  at the apotheosis of his literary-alchemical opus, Browne specifies the three factors necessary for determining truth, namely authority, reason and experience; Vulcan  here representing the "higher man" who, not unlike the Gnostic, "Man of Light," uses his craftsmanship and skills to aid, enlighten and liberate the Spiritual Man within.

'Flat and Flexible truths are beat out by every hammer, but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out  Achilles his armour'.

In his late work Christian Morals which was written as a parental 'advisio' for his grown-up children, Sir Thomas Browne alludes a further three times to Vulcan, and just as the Belgian scientist Van Helmont (1580-1644) before him defined alchemy as Vulcan's art.  In a passage which perceptively describes the human psyche as 'the theatre of ourselves', Browne somewhat critically stated-

'Vulcan's Art doth nothing doth nothing in this internal militia; wherein not the armour of Achilles, but the armature of St. Paul, gives the glorious day'.

In modern times the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung interpreted Vulcan as one who:

'kindles the fiery wheel of the essence in the soul when it 'breaks off' from God; whence come desire and sin, which are the "wrath of God." [3]

The alchemists adoption of the mythical figure of Vulcan may be interpreted on several levels. At the lowest scale of interpretation Vulcan represents the cunning amoral demi-urge who blindly gains power over Nature without integrity; this mundane level anticipates the nascent Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The activities of  extracting coal from mines to fuel colossal furnaces to manufacture steel and iron on a gigantic scale, and the subsequent development of the railroad and train throughout Europe and North America are distinctly Vulcan-like activities; as is the general "busyness" of the Protestant work-ethic of industrialised Western society also strongly reflected in this archetypal figure.

The transformative power of Vulcan the "higher man" and anthropos figure of the alchemists has today devolved into the negative aspects of a demi-urge figure; none other than modern technological man, who, divorced from God, forges his own destiny, independent of Religion, Divine Love or theological considerations, towards a brave new world or utopia. This is reflected in the fact that today the name of Vulcan is best known as either the name of a bomber plane or as the extra-terrestrial semi-human species as represented by Mr. Spock in the American science-fiction TV and film series 'Star-Trek'.

At a higher level of interpretation however, Vulcan is transformed to become an inspired visionary who is capable of releasing Mankind from the bonds of unknowingness and darkness; which is how alchemists such as Paracelsus and followers such as Van Helmont, Arthur Dee and Sir Thomas Browne interpreted the symbolism of Vulcan.

Author’s note

This article was originally written for Wikipedia in 2003 and subsequently duplicated in various places elsewhere on-line before its eventual deletion.
I assert the right to be identified as the original author of this short essay.
Other on-line writings encountered on thus subject of Vulcan and his relationship to alchemy are mirror duplication from the Wikipedia original, and the product of copy and paste scholarship.

As Sir Thomas Browne once stated -

'Men are still content to plume themselves in other’s feathers’.[4]

Art-work (top) Vulcan at forge by Chris  Appel
Next -  One of three canvases painted by the Northern Mannerist artist, Joachim Wtewael of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan
Last- Tintoretto - Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan

Notes

[1] Abridged from Wikipedia
[2]  Paracelsus Selected writings ed. Jolandi Jacobi Princeton 1951
[3] CW 12 215
[4] Christian Morals Part II Section 9  pub. post. 1716

Winter scene with skaters

Two contrasting faces of Winter to end the year with.

In the Dutch painter Frederick Marinus Kruseman's Winter scene with skaters many characteristics associated with later nineteenth century Romanticism and its idealized view of Nature as a benevolent and beautiful phenomena are present. The fun of the winter sport of ice-skating performed in a setting of scenic snow and ice against a backdrop of a spectacular castle and a dramatic cloudscape, all warmly coloured, are featured in Kruseman's romantic painting.

Paintings of winter scenery and landscapes are a peculiarly Dutch genre. Begun in the Renaissance by Jan Bruegel and developed by Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) the crowded scenes of Dutch winter paintings give strong clues as to the high density of the Netherlands population during the century which saw the zenith of Dutch ambitions, establishing an overseas Empire and in European cultural influence.

I've a sinking feeling however that a certain painting  from the seventeenth century, the Golden Age of Dutch art by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628–1682) may in the light of this year's economic and environmental woes, today exert a greater resonance to a large percentage of society than the sweetness and light of Kruseman's romantic painting.

In Jacob Ruisdael's painting's nature has a far less benevolent relationship towards humanity. In Winter Landscape I (1670) the sky is uncompromisingly gloomy and threatening, while in its foreground something has occurred which is rarely depicted in winter scenes, yet which invariably must happen to those skating, a person has fallen down onto the ice. To the credit of Ruisdael he has also depicted an onlooker expressing  an awareness of common humanity, dashing to assist the unfortunate faller. 

Although now more than ever we all appear to be skating upon the thin-ice of the world economy and climate, may I take this opportunity to wish all visitors to this blog a Happy Xmas and a New Year full of the rosy-cheeked, cheerful optimism of the above painting, with little of the black gloom of Winter as depicted below.

Baucis and Philomen

Evidence that Sir Thomas Browne appreciated the artistry of Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and also possessed a poetic sensibility, notably when he was far from the city.

Inspired by the good folk of bootiful Norfolk, the following verse, originally written in Latin, can be found in his commonplace notebooks-

'Being in the country a few miles from Norwich, I observed a handsome bower of honey-suckle over the door of a right good man; which bower I fancied to speak as followeth:

I would rather cheer a humble healthy yeoman here,

Than cherish noble noses

And nostrils foul with the plague and contagion...

Nor do I seek to cleanse stinking throats and perjured mouths

With a decoction of my leaves.

Nor do I wreathe the hard lintels of the great,

Compared to whom Cerberus would be a lamb.

But I adorn the kindly door of my master and mistress,

A house where enters neither force nor guile.

Such, if the gods came down to earth from heaven,

Is the cottage which Jupiter and Mercury would enter.*

Adding this footnote-

*Alluding to the fable in Ovid of Baucis and Philemon entertaining Jupiter and Mercury in their cottage; whereof hangs in my parlour from a draught of Rubens'.

Browne must be writing of some kind of reproduction here, perhaps a printed etching, surely not the original oil-painting of Baucis and Philomen (above) attributed to the collective workshop of Peter Paul Rubens (circa 1620-5)